Social Security and you

I don't expect social security to be there for me in any significant way. And I believe that it's a bad thing as a whole. It's not the role of the government to make people save.

The thought process is that since Americans don't save voluntarily, if the feds don't make us save now, they'll have to pay for our upkeep after we have stopped earning an income.

My uncle John sent me the text of the following link. It contains an editorial originally in the Wall Street Journal. I have read it a few times now and, in all honesty, I need to read it a few more times. He thinks I'm much smarter than I am.

I'll let him introduce it:

"Below is an article in last weeks Wall Street Journal. I thought it was an idea that was likely to start getting some air time in Washington and appears to be a reasonable compromise on solving social security issues.

Like you, I'd like to have them pay what was promised. We all know that is mathematically impossible. This seems to be a workable solution. You should know about it.

Here's the deal, you are getting this email because you are likely to be asked one more time to solve a problem. Why? Because you are or will be successful. Hence, you are most likely to receive less from social security while others receive their promised benefits. The article below uses the term "progressive indexing". A fancy term for means testing. However, it takes from you in a way that is likely more palatable than raising taxes, currently or in the future, doesn't require the income limit to be raised beyond how Congress already changes the base, provides a workable solution to solvency, allows individual specific accounts and has much less effect on current deficits.
Enjoy.

Hope all of you are well. "

"When the late Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was asked why he favored personal Social Security accounts, he liked to answer in two words: "wealth inequality." That insight is also driving a useful idea now being tossed into the reform debate -- "progressive indexing." More

The other link concerns "designer social security." The gist of it comes down to options.

• Pick when you want to retire.
• Pick how much you want as a benefit when you retire.
• Pick how much you want to invest now.
• Pick where you want to invest your money.

New York Post article.

I like the idea of choices. It makes the concept of paying for people that didn't think of the future more palatable.